Sleepless Nights
by Estel-Undomiel25
Summary: Facing Death Eaters, Voldemort, terrifying magical creatures, or even the Order of the Phoenix is enough to keep anyone up at night. Everyone knows what it feels like to have something on your mind that keeps you from sleeping, keeps you staring into the darkness, unable to keep the memories and worries away. What kept these characters up at night?
1. Phantom Pains

*Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Warner Brothers or anything and I'm not JK Rowling, aka our Queen. I just love it a lot.*

"The second man turned at the sound of their footsteps. He too broke off in mid-conversation, his cold gray eyes narrowed and fixed upon Harry's face.

'Well, well, well… Patronus Potter," said Lucius Malfoy coolly.

Harry felt winded, as though he had just walked into something heavy. He had last seen those cool gray eyes through slits in a Death Eater's hood, and had last heard that man's voice jeering in a dark graveyard while Lord Voldemort tortured him."

-Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Ch. 9: The Woes of Mrs. Weasley, p. 154

Sirius Black sat in the dark, silent kitchen of the house he'd grown up in – the house he hated, but couldn't escape. But it wasn't his own problems that were bothering him. He was worried about his godson, Harry Potter, who'd be leaving for Hogwarts in just a few hours, where Sirius couldn't protect him or reassure him.

All summer, Sirius had worried about Harry. How was he dealing with Cedric's death, away from his friends and stuck at Privet Drive with the horrible Dursleys? Sirius couldn't help but think that he was failing his best friend by leaving his son with people who didn't care about him, and by not helping the Order in the fight.

He pressed shaking hands to his face, remembering the broken look in Harry's eyes that had been present ever since he returned from the graveyard; how Harry, polite, independent Harry, had bravely told him he understood that Sirius had to leave and alert the Order when his godson needed him most. He couldn't get the image of Harry's dead body lying on his floor next to a sobbing Mrs. Weasley out of his head, even if it had been a boggart and Harry had been right there, alive and whole.

"Merlin, James," he thought to himself. "I'm so sorry I haven't been keeping our boy safe. But suddenly, his thoughts of shame were interrupted when he heard footsteps on the stairs and the light of a wand blinded him momentarily.

"Sirius," said a hoarse, quiet voice.

"Harry?" he asked confusedly, before a voice that reminded him of Lily told him to act like an adult for once. "Never mind that you shouldn't be doing magic — what are you doing up? The Hogwarts Express leaves in a few hours."

But Harry just looked down at his bare feet, not at all the confident boy he usually was. In those few seconds, Sirius looked at his godson, really looked at him, and saw the way he had an arm folded around himself as if for protection, the defensive but defeated stance he was taking. He was getting more concerned with every weighty second that passed. Finally, Harry answered him.

"I – I had a nightmare."

Sirius's heart ached when Harry's voice cracked on the word nightmare. He cleared his throat and lit the lamp on the table with his wand.

"Why don't you sit down, Harry?" Harry moved tentatively forward, then sat down across from Sirius, but remained silent.

"Harry, please tell me what's wrong. I can't help if you don't tell me what's wrong."

"There's nothing you can do, it's already happened," Harry snapped, just as his face suddenly twisted into a grimace of pure pain and he pulled in on himself more, almost curled up in his chair.

"Harry! Harry, what's wrong? Are you hurt?"

A thousand thoughts ran through Sirius's head as he leapt from his chair and knelt next to his godson.

_Did he hurt himself when the Dementors attacked? Did… did the Durselys do something?_

The teen's tears fell on Sirius's hands that covered Harry's own as Harry spoke in a voice no louder than a whisper, his skin pale and clammy in the flickering light.

"I've had… a lot of nightmares since what happened in June," he confessed. "Of Cedric dy-dying. Of my parents. But it's never been like this. I can _feel_ it again."

Sirius frowned in concern, unable to shake the feeling that something was very wrong.

"I'm sorry you're having nightmares, Harry. I wish like hell you'd never been through that night, never seen those things. But what do you mean, you can _feel_ it?"

Because something told Sirius that Harry wasn't talking about feeling fear or sadness. At last, his godson met his eyes, and the pain visible in them shook the Azkaban escapee as Harry spoke again.

"When Mr. Weasley and I were leaving the Ministry, we ran into Fudge and – and Lucius Malfoy," Harry choked out. "The last time I saw him, he was wearing a Death Eater hood and laughing. Laughing while Voldemort… _hurt_ me."

Fear and rage warred within Sirius, and he asked the question to which he knew he didn't want to know the answer.

"You told Dumbledore and me that you dueled Voldemort, but you never said what exactly… Harry, how did Voldemort 'hurt' you?"

That was when the Boy Who Lived and had escaped Voldemort so many times in his short life truly broke down, sobbing and clutching at his godfather.

"He used the Cruciatus Curse on me! It hurt so much, Sirius, both times I just wanted to die! I wished it would all end! And then seeing Mr. Malfoy like that today… in my nightmares tonight, _He_ was cursing me again. And even after I woke up, my whole body ached. I'm still getting flashes of it now. I'd never felt the curse again before tonight."

Stunned, Sirius hugged his godson, rubbing circles on his back, unable to believe he'd never realized the ways Voldemort had tortured his godson, using the Cruciatus on him twice! Harry had never mentioned this to him or Dumbledore, and Sirius had been too worked up to notice the trembling in Harry's limbs that must have been present, an after-effect of the curse.

He'd heard sometimes victims felt phantom tremors, had seen Order members experience it, and though he had felt the curse's blinding pain before, he'd been an adult and hadn't felt lingering effects like Harry was now. The Unforgiveable Curses were about the only thing Sirius had luckily escaped growing up in the Black family with pureblood fanatics all around him, and that was a miracle in and of itself. The sight of someone from that terrifying night must have brought it all back for Harry.

"Shhh, Harry. It's okay. It'll be alright, he soothed. "Just hold onto me, that's it…"

There was nothing Sirius could do but try to give Harry strength and support. He decided right then that he'd owl Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall in the morning to make sure they knew to keep an eye on Harry. He knew he could trust them both.

At last, the teen fell into an exhausted and tense sleep, and Sirius gathered him into his arms, carrying him up the steps and to the boy's bed, old pains and a night of torture clear on his face. And there Sirius stayed until he heard Arthur and Molly awaken and Order members knock on his door, dwelling on the wearing night.

He stood from the rickety chair, kissed Harry's forehead, and left the room, realizing exactly why and how he was going to accompany his godson to Platform 9 ¾. "I'll do my best for him, James, Lily. I swear to you."


	2. The Loneliest Sacrifice

*Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or Warner Brothers or anything and I'm not JK Rowling, aka our Queen. I just love it a lot.*

This chapter is dedicated to my first reviewer, ClaireZoRonoa, who I DMed like five days ago in thanks and told I'd be posting a chapter… like five days ago, which was obviously a lie because I am lazy. So, sorry! I've actually had this written for like a week, I just didn't want to type and correct it. Again, lazy.

"And he ordered – Kreacher to leave – without him. And he told Kreacher – to go home – and never tell my Mistress – what he had done – but to destroy – the first locket. And he drank – all the potion – and Kreacher swapped the lockets – and watched… as Master Regulus... was dragged beneath the water… and…"

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Ch. 10: Kreacher's Tale, p.196

Chapter 2: The Loneliest Sacrifice

On a dark, incredibly foggy night, Regulus Black sat at his desk in his room, a blank piece of parchment on the table in front of him. The only light in the room came from a small gas lamp that the seventeen year old wizard had lit, a flickering circle of light in the black.

Even with his eyes closed, Regulus could see the dancing light as he thought about the moments that had brought him to this point.

He remembered the hatred in Sirius's eyes when he packed his things at age sixteen to head to James Potter's house, leaving his fourteen year old brother in a house and family completely surrounded by pureblood elitism and the dark arts. He could still hear his brother's last words to him before he left as if they'd been said yesterday instead of years ago.

"I'm sorry I'm leaving you here alone, but Mum and Dad don't want me here and I don't think I can stand to be in this house any longer. War is upon us Reg. But even if you and I are on different sides, I want you to remember something."

Here his brother paused, considering his next words carefully and pushing some of his long hair out of his face.

"Be brave. Be smart. Protect the ones you love. You can't go wrong then. See you at Hogwarts."

Sirius then smiled sadly and left, leaving Regulus speechless. Why was Sirius leaving him? Why couldn't he just have been a Slytherin who obeyed his parents and was proud of his strong bloodline, like Regulus and the rest of the Blacks?

A bitter wind swept into Regulus's open window even as memories of the last few dark years came back to him.

Left alone with his parents, Regulus began to believe more and more in the Dark Lord and his ideals. At age sixteen, he joined the Death Eaters. Though the things he did were horrible, his parents were proud of him, and he was in so deep that he justified all the evil he was doing as making the world better for everyone.

Every tick of the clock in Regulus's room seemed magnified as the seconds passed. It was almost time. He couldn't believe how much his life had changed in two weeks, when he volunteered the family house elf, Kreacher, to serve the Dark Lord in an effort to earn Voldemort's trust as he tried to find a way to escape the Death Eaters without risking his family and Kreacher once he'd left.

He'd waited anxiously for Kreacher to return. Everything changed when Kreacher returned soaking wet and gasping for breath with a tale of horror. Seeing his house elf, who'd only ever served him kindly, near death and scared out of his mind, suddenly brought to the surface any and all reservations he had about being a Death Eater, the evils he'd both witnessed and committed, and he knew he couldn't wait any longer to end his time with the Dark Lord.

It was then that Regulus realized how he could make up for his crimes. Kreacher's story made it clear that the Dark Lord had a secret plan to make himself immortal: he'd made a Horcrux. A Horcrux was an evil creation in which the soul was split through murder, and as long as a wizard had a piece of his soul hidden away in a Horcrux, he couldn't be killed. Regulus had come across the term two years before in a dark, horrid book in the dusty attic of Grimmauld Place, and now he knew to how to put the knowledge to use.

He would go to that cave, switch the locket out with a fake, and order Kreacher to destroy the Horcrux. None of his family could ever know he'd betrayed the Dark Lord, or they would be in danger. Regulus also felt guilty for ever endangering Kreacher in such a way, and he knew he needed to keep the elf safe if he could.

The clock's hands inched toward 1:00 am as Regulus sat in the darkness. He hadn't really needed two weeks to prepare – he'd been working up the nerve to go through with his plan.

His mind wandered to his older brother, who he knew was fighting with the Order of the Phoenix against the Dark Lord, which he'd probably been doing since he left Hogwarts. He didn't know where his brother was, and he knew Sirius would never know what he'd done, but he hoped he'd be proud of him.

"What do you know, Sirius. We ended up on the same side after all."

Talking to his brother kept him grounded, even if Sirius wasn't around to hear it. He whispered into the silence:

"I'm trying to be brave, Sirius, I'm trying to be smart. And I'm going to try to take down Voldemort to protect you and Mum and Dad. I'm just sorry I didn't ever get to thank you for your advice. Tell you that you were right to fight against the Death Eaters. That I love you and never would've had the courage to do this without you."

The clock struck one, and Regulus knew it was time to wake up Kreacher. At last ready to walk to his death, Regulus smoothed out the piece of parchment in front of him, and clenched the cold metal locket in his left hand as he dipped his quill into the black ink with his right. He lifted the quill, paused, and then pressed its tip to the parchment, his hand sweating but steady as the words took form on the paper: To the Dark Lord…


End file.
